


About a Monster

by ThatHCWriter



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate take, Angst, Dark (ish), Gen, Hawkins National Laboratory, Speculation, Will Byers Has Powers, alternate perspective, theory, unlikely heros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 16:56:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24410182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatHCWriter/pseuds/ThatHCWriter
Summary: She was always taught that monsters were never born. She was always taught to see the other side of the story.But here she is, on the other side, and no one seems to be seeing her.Or, the Demogorgon is not a monster, at least, not to everyone.
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper & The Party, Jim "Chief" Hopper & Sara Hopper, Will Byers & The Party
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	About a Monster

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a weird one for me, but it's been in my head for a while, and I needed to write this out and share it. 
> 
> Hawkins Lab is its own warning.

She didn't have many memories of what life was like before the lab. There was more to her than she remembered, she figured, because she couldn't have always been in this building, she couldn't have always just been called Zeros, but she didn't remember any of the details. She only had a few sparse moments that were clear, but they meant everything to her. She remembered the sun, the fresh air, warm blankets and real smiles, but more than that she remembered her dad. 

She remembered how he laughed, how he talked, and most vividly, the stories he would tell her. He would read her to sleep every night, and she loved those stories, but her favorites were the stories he didn't need a book to tell. The ones that happened to him throughout his life, through the funny, the happy, and even the sad. One story in particular was most vivid in her memory, though, the one about the little boy her dad had to 'put away.' He stole a bag of food from a grocery store, and was caught while he tried to leave. She didn't remember anything else about the story, except for what her dad would always say at the end. "He wasn't a bad kid, sweetheart, he was doing it because his mommy didn't have enough money to give him and his siblings food. I have to put away a lot of people who are just like him. That's what matters, that's what you have to know. There are lots of people who do bad things, but most of them aren't bad people. Even really scary monsters are sometimes just doing what they have to. No one's born that way." 

"Then why are we scared of them, daddy?" She remembers asking, pulling her stuffed tiger close to her chest. She remembers her dad's response more clearly than anything else she could think of. 

"Because some of us think they're strange. They act in a way that we don't recognize because of problems that we don't have, and that scares us." 

She thinks that's why she's here. Because ever since that day in the park, when everything went black, and the sky went red, she started to feel different, act different. It wasn't just because of the disease they told her about. She was listening to the doctors, and what they were saying didn't make any sense. She was so much worse than that, so much worse that she started lashing out, crying more, feeling really bad. 

She was acting strange. 

And it probably scared them. 

Now she sits in her cell, and she can hear the gate calling from down the hall. She's not sure if it's calling her or if it's calling _it _, that part of her that she doesn't like to think about. She hears people talking outside of her cell, about a boy who lives nearby, a boy who sees the future. A boy who they wanted to take. It hurt her, to think that they wanted more. They already had ruined her and they were getting too close to ruining the others.__

__She felt herself getting angry, protective, overwhelmed by the need to do something, anything. Because this couldn't happen. Never again. She heard it ask to take over, and despite herself, she let it. She let the sticky, black stuff cover her skin, she let her face be ripped into the shape of a flower, she let all of those teeth lock themselves into her skin. And then, she let it leave. She let it tear through every person she met on her way out, and she let it unlock the door where the others were kept on her way out._ _

__She kept in the shadowy woods, not wanting to get caught when she saw a boy on a bicycle. She took a second glance, and the feeling hit her hard. This was the boy they wanted. She had to warn him. She stepped out in front of him, scaring him bad enough to swerve into the path. She hoped the crash didn't leave the boy bleeding. She was scared of what it did when someone was bleeding. He took off running into the night, leaving her in the darkness. Okay, he wouldn't listen. But she had to try. So, she did the only thing that it knew how to do. She gave chase, letting it use its gifts to get in and out of tight spaces, until it cornered him in a shed. She let it take him into its home, remembering how afraid the men at the lab were of stepping into the gate. She knew how to survive here, though. She could help the kid live here._ _

__She let it set him down carefully, as he had passed out while it went home, and shifted back to her normal self. She knelt next to him, whispering softly, "Please don't be afraid, I'm trying to keep you safe." It was her mantra with every passing minute. She hated that it took that girl on the diving board when it didn't need to. She hated that she had to cause so much pain to keep the boy, Will, she surmised, safe. She hated this, but she was free._ _

__So when her sister, Eleven, the youngest of the group, had her pinned to a chalkboard, she fought like hell to get free. To show she looked like them, she wasn't a threat, she was worth saving. But Eleven fought harder, got madder._ _

__She understood, though. She was strange, and it probably scared her sister._ _

__So as she stopped fighting, she still tried to get through to her sister, to anyone that was listening._ _

__"Please don't hurt me. I was just trying to help."_ _

**Author's Note:**

> It’s strange, I know. But I hope it made you think a little.


End file.
